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Fat Guy says eat up and shut up
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One thing that we all agreed on was that Popov is nowhere near as smooth or as tasty as Ketel One. Its questionable flavor pierces even cranberry juice, so we were not enthusiastic about drinking it. As a result, as the night went on I began feeling relatively loose, but the mood seemed definitely more sober. One person speculated that we weren't drinking as much, arguing that even though we were putting diligent effort into measuring the drinks accurately, the bad taste of the Popov subconsciously (or otherwise) led to weaker drinks. Fearing that he may be right, I added one beverage to my eight to compensate. Everyone else stuck (as far as their journals reveal) to what they had drunk the previous round.

The next morning, two of the testers and I reported mild hangovers, some headache tendencies, but generally OK. The fourth tester faced what she described as a splitting headache. Overall the hangover count wasn't that bad. The lack of pain from such cheap vodka reinforced the theory that we just didn't drink as much of the harsh Popov.

But upon inspection of the scene the next day, I spotted credit cards lying on the keyboard of the computer. Then it came back to me. Somewhere around 2 a.m. the night before we got the brilliant idea to start buying shoes online.

I took this as a fair sign we had been drunk.

Also Today Bottoms up Raw eggs, Guinness and pastrami can help your hangover, but don't mix them. By Steven A. Shaw

Now we were ready for the final Skyy test. We picked up the same mixers, Tater Tots, and a big blue bottle of Skyy. We convened around 9 p.m., and again, the party wore on until about 2 a.m. I continued to make a concerted effort to mix the drinks the same strength as they had been all along. By the end of the night I had finished my now-standard eight drinks, but of the other participants, two fell a drink short (though they were obviously feeling what drinks they did have), and the last tester added a drink to her regimen.

At some point in the night I noticed a unique attribute of my Skyy buzz; it left me remarkably clear-headed. I was feeling intoxicated, but my head seemed very sound. Case in point, I remembered to floss my teeth before going to bed.

Mich Earleywine, an alcohol and alcoholism researcher at the University of Southern California, says that he has seen other anecdotal evidence that different congener content can cause a subjectively different buzz. Mostly he says this comes from reports on tequila, which has different congeners than other popular alcohols. I was impressed that Skyy's heavy filtration process would be so noticeable even as I was drinking. I prepped myself to be hangover free. As for the taste, it did leave a little more of a vodka aftertaste than Ketel One, but notably less than Popov. It's good vodka, and comes sans Ketel One's lofty import price. If hangover free, it was a real find. I ran this thought by the rest of the crew and they concurred.

In the end though, I was hung over. Not too badly, but I felt a lingering exhaustion that stuck with me through the morning. My headache was small, but it was there. Two of the other participants (one male, one female) reported feeling hung over, but with relatively light headaches. The fourth participant said she had a nice meaty headache, no doubt about it. Skyy, for all its distillation and filtration, felt relatively on par with both Popov and Ketel One in terms of aftermath.

Obviously this test had its flaws. Not everyone managed to consume the exact same amount of vodka each night. We used sugary mixers. We ate Tater Tots. After talking with the group, however, we all agreed that it didn't seem to matter too much that the test wasn't extremely precise. Skyy, if consumed to a state of intoxication in the right setting, will produce a headache. Other vodkas will also. As we found, cheap vodkas may even produce less of a headache because you'll want to drink less of them.

Skyy's distilling process probably does reduce the headache aspect of a hangover to some degree. Perhaps, if limited to two or three drinks, Skyy's reduced congener content can make a real difference in next-day health. The problem is that mixed with all the other factors that go into a hangover, the impact of congeners just gets lost in the noise.

The four of us came to the consensus that if anything should be gleaned from our experiment is that you should rely on moderation, Advil, and water to get you through a hangover, and you should choose vodka based on personal taste preference. When I asked each person which one night they would do again, the reaction was unanimous: Ketel One, Saturday morning haze be damned.
salon.com | Dec. 29, 1999

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